Latest news, aid agency responses, pictures, videos and blogs from the Philippines where super typhoon Haiyan has killed at least 10,000 people and drove more than 600,000 from their homes

It's been two weeks since the typhoon devastated Tacloban city in the Philippines. Marine Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy is in Tacloban overseeing U.S. military relief efforts in the Philippines, and he says the city is picking up the pieces, businesses are re-opening and he sees signs up hope in the residents. Here's the radio report from NPR

Maoist rebels have extended for another month a unilateral ceasefire in areas devastated by typhoon Haiyan, ordering guerrillas to help distribute food, water and other relief supplies in coastal and mountain villages

NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation)—United States Agency for International Development (USAID) applied lessons learned from the tsumani in Indonesia and earthquakes in Haiti and Pakistan in its response to the super typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, according to a top agency executive official just back from a weeklong visit to the devastated region. “One of the lessons we’ve applied is the local purchase of rice,” Nancy Lindborg, USAID's assistant administrator of the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, told Thomson Reuters Foundation. USAID fielded an experienced 19-person disaster assistance response team on the ground in the Philippines, supplemented by 50 to 60 additional personnel from USAID’s Philippines mission and its Washington headquarters, she said. USAID gave immediate cash--$7,750,000 according to UNICEF’s fact sheet-- to the World Food Programme so that it could purchase rice from local and regional sources, getting it to the people who needed it far faster than by bringing in food from outside, she said. The result was food parcels distributed to 2.7 million families. The rice was supplemented by nutritious biscuits and other items flown in from USAID’s regional distribution hub in Dubai, airlifted by U.S. military transport planes. The agency also employed U.S. military aircraft, such as Blackhawk helicopters and Osprey aircraft, to airlift supplies to remote areas in the days before roads were cleared. In addition, to date USAID has provided heavy duty plastic sheeting to 20,000 families for temporary shelter, hygiene kits to prevent disease to another 20,000 and water containers to 30,000 households, Lindborg said. USAID allocated $750,000 to UNICEF to restore the municipal water system in the devastated city of Tacloban. The repaired system currently is supplying clean water to 200,000 people in that area, she said. “The U.S. government put $49 million into the response and that is money that already has been turned into urgent, lifesaving assistance and put into the hands of the people that need it most,” Lindborg said. Any lessons learned from the response to the typhoon, Lindborg said, will come when the crisis is over and the after-action reports are analysed.

AFP video journalist Agnes Bun arrived in the Philippines a day after typhoon Haiyan hit. Over six days she shot images of a woman sobbing over the body of her five-year-old son and a baby being born in a makeshift hospital among many others. Telling the story behind the story, Bun describes a range of experiences from what it was like working in place with no electricity, no phone lines or mobile network to feeling like a “vulture”, feeding off the misfortune of others. Her thought-provoking blog: Lessons in life from the hell of Haiyan is a must-read for anyone interested in what it’s like to cover huge disasters like the one in the Philippines

Often people asked me to film them in the mad hope that I would help them to pass on their personal messages. “Mother, I am alive,” they would say in front of my camera. Of course, it was not possible for me to pass on dozens of desperate messages. But how could I get them to understand this? How could I refuse their pleading? How could I quash the only glimpse of hope that they could see amid this complete destruction? Impossible. So I complied -- I filmed them, although I knew I would never use these images. They thanked me profusely. It broke my heart to be doing this. I felt guilty and weak. But I also saw that this sad charade seemed to really lift their spirits – Agnes Bun, AFP video journalist

From Haiti to Libya to the Philippines, U.N. OCHA's Andrej Verity has been connecting geeks with bleeding hearts on the humanitarian frontline to map emergencies and streamline the flow of information during crises - bringing two very different worlds together through the use of technology to support humanitarian response, our correspondent Katy Migiro reports.

From our Bangkok correspondent Alisa Tang: Philippine social welfare authorities earlier this week detained two men trying to fly out of typhoon-devastated Tacloban city with an unrelated 16-year-old girl, a U.N. spokeswoman said, raising concerns about the trafficking of minors in the chaotic aftermath of the disaster. Read the whole story here

While Filipino lawmakers have been embroiled in a scandal over widely misused fund for their pet projects, news website Rappler.com writes that maybe not all "pork" is bad, if channelled to disaster mitigation projects. Read the story here.

Prior to Typhoon Haiyan, the Philippines had already been grappling with the impacts of two natural disasters and a conflict, but the typhoon is overshadowing other aid efforts. Aid agencies are urging donors and the media not to forget the humanitarian needs of the tens of thousands of families who remain displaced in two other emergencies in the Philippines, reports our correspondent Thin Lei Win (@thinink).

Over the coming three months, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it and the Philippine Red Cross will provide 67,000 people with drinking water and around 63,000 people with emergency health care in Eastern Samar, one of the areas hardest-hit by the super typhoon. "People already living in dire poverty have seen their crops and livelihoods destroyed, while water networks and health facilities have been severely affected. These communities will need a lot of help in the coming months and beyond to rebuild their lives," said Vincent Cassard, who is coordinating the ICRC's response to Typhoon Haiyan in Manila."We will keep distributing food to affected communities along the south coast of Samar as long as needed, but we plan to help people get back on their feet through sustainable sources of income."For more, read ICRC’s release: Typhoon relief efforts scale up on Samar Island

Dulag is a city in ruins. Four of every five houses are damaged; people drowned when the sea surged through the town; livestock, crops, livelihoods—all destroyed in an instant. So why is Dulag a hive of busy activity and not a place of mourning? Why are people laughing in the streets today?

University of Michigan critical care nurse Tim Launius has spent the past week putting on medical clinics in different regions of northern Panay - helping to treat about one thousand people so far.

“Most of what we are seeing out there is more things like respiratory tract infections, kids with coughs, because these people lost their homes and everything got wet and now they are sleeping out in what is left of their home – and trying to repair their homes,” said Launius. “They are somewhat malnourished, and we’re dispensing a lot of vitamins and a lot of antibiotics.”

“A lot of people are stepping on things and cutting their feet – so I’ve dressed a lot of wounds, I think I’ve given more tetanus shots in the last week than I have in the previous 13 years of my career,” he noted.

Thousands of survivors of super typhoon Haiyan walked in darkness towards damaged churches in central Philippines at the start of Christmas vigil dawn masses on Monday, clinging to their faith as they struggle to piece together shattered lives.

Haiyan reduced almost everything in its path to rubble when it swept ashore in the central Philippines on Nov. 8, killing at least 6,069 people, leaving 1,779 missing and 4 million either homeless or with damaged homes.

Across the centre of the mostly Catholic Philippines, people are scraping together whatever they can to celebrate Christmas, nearly seven weeks after the storm. Some are struggling to cope with their grief.

Across the centre of the mostly Catholic Philippines, people are scraping together whatever they can to celebrate Christmas, nearly seven weeks after the storm. Some are struggling to cope with their grief

"Seeing the corpses lining the road from the airport to Tacloban city was unpleasant. Seeing the devastation of the storm on Tacloban and other cities was distressing.

Yet it was meeting survivors like Rene, Ophelia and Ricael Ebar that touched me most and left the biggest impression on me. It has also led me to make a New Year resolution that for once I know I won’t break - to cover their recovery throughout the year and to make sure, as much as my journalistic skills enable me to, that funds reach those who need it most."

Mafias have preyed on survivors of Typhoon Haiyan who moved to Manila and Cebu after the disaster, selling them into prostitution and modern day slavery, according to a bishop in the Philippines.

“During disaster situations (like Haiyan), a lot of people are desperate to look for work, shelter, and education, among other things. These particular vulnerabilities are the usual things offered to them by exploiters,” Bishop Broderick Pabillo told the Devex news service.

Pabillo, convenor of the Philippines’ Interfaith Movement Against Human Trafficking and Manila’s auxiliary bishop, said he hoped the Haiyan disaster could spur greater efforts to tackle the problem.

He urged the aid community to raise better awareness of the different forms and causes of human trafficking and help the country improve rehabilitation services for victims. The bishop also called for Philippine courts to do a better job of prosecuting trafficking cases in order to deter criminal gangs. Read more here.